Snapdragon X Series: Crushing Productivity, But Gaming Needs a Power-Up
The first wave of Snapdragon X series laptops is here, and everyone's talking about Qualcomm's ambitious move into the Windows world. While these new ARM-powered devices are slaying it in productivity, the early reviews are showing that gaming performance is lagging behind.
These Snapdragon chips are blazing fast, but gaming needs some optimization (Image source: Technetbook)
Qualcomm is going all-in with their new Snapdragon X series, powering the latest "Copilot Plus" laptops with their cutting-edge Oryon CPU cores. The top-tier chip, the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100, boasts an impressive 12 cores and can hit speeds up to 4.3 GHz. Sounds amazing, right?
Well, here's the catch: We've been putting these new chips through their paces, and while they absolutely crush it in productivity tasks, gaming performance is a different story.
Here's the lowdown:
- Game Compatibility Hiccups: Several games flat-out refused to run, and those that did often crashed or had issues with resolution settings.
- Frame Rate Frustration: Even when games ran smoothly, the frame rates weren't quite what we hoped for.
Our tests with the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 showed:
- Witcher 3: 19 FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings – playable, but not pretty.
- GTA V: 20.4 FPS at 1080p with highest settings – definitely room for improvement.
- Final Fantasy X: 15.6 FPS at 1080p with high settings – a bit choppy for our liking.
The Good News:
Don't write off the Snapdragon X series just yet! These chips excel in productivity tasks, delivering smooth performance for everyday work. And get this – they maintain that performance even when you're unplugged, which is almost unheard of in the Windows world!
The Bottom Line:
Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series has the potential to shake up the laptop market, but gaming performance needs some serious optimization before it can truly compete with the big dogs. We're excited to see what improvements Qualcomm has up their sleeve!
Check out these in-depth reviews for the full scoop:
- Our Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED review (machine translated from German)
- Dave2D's Take
- TechTablets Hands-On
- Matthew Moniz's Review
Source(s)
Our Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED review (machine translated from German), Dave2D, TechTablets, Matthew Moniz